American author Michael Connelly was born 21 July 1956. He writes very exciting detective novels and other crime fiction, notably those featuring LAPD Detective Hieronymus “Harry” Bosch and criminal defense attorney Mickey Haller. After graduating from the University of Florida in 1980, Connelly got a job as a crime beat writer at the Daytona Beach News Journalwhere he worked for almost two years until he got a job at the Fort Lauderdale News and Sun-Sentinel in 1981. There, he covered the crime beat during the South Florida cocaine wars, an era that brought with it much violence and murder. He stayed with the paper for a few years and in 1986, he and two other reporters spent several months interviewing survivors of the 1985 Delta Flight 191 plane crash, a story which earned Connelly a place as a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. the honor also brought Connelly a job as a crime reporter at the Los Angeles Times. He moved to California in 1987 with his wife Linda McCaleb, whom he met while in college and married in April 1984. After moving to Los Angeles, Connelly went to see the High Tower Apartments where Raymond Chandler’s famous character, Philip Marlowe, had lived (in The High Window), and Robert Altman had filmed. Connelly got the manager of the building to promise a phone call in case the apartment ever became available.
Ten years later, the manager tracked Connelly down and he decided to rent the place. This apartment served as a place to write for several years, but it was more based on the nostalgia of the place than the comfort of it (for example, it didn’t have air conditioning).After three years at the Los Angeles Times, Connelly wrote his first published novel The Black Echo, after previously writing two unfinished novels that he had not attempted to get published. The novel was sold to Little, Brown to be published in 1992 and won theMystery Writers of America’s Edgar Award for best first novel.The book is partly based on a true crime and is the first one featuring Connelly’s primary recurring character, Los Angeles Police Department Detective Hieronymus “Harry” Bosch, a man who, according to Connelly, shares few similarities with the author himself. Connelly named Bosch after the Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch, known for his paintings full of sin and redemption, including a painting called “Hell”, a copy of which hangs on the office wall behind Connelly’s computer. Connelly describes his own work as a big canvas with all the characters of his books floating across it as currents on a painting. Sometime they are bound to collide creating cross currents. This is something that Connelly himself creates by bringing back characters from previous books and letting them play a part in books written five or six years after first being introduced.[3]Connelly went on to write three more novels about Detective Bosch — The Black Ice (1993), The Concrete Blonde (1994), and The Last Coyote (1995) — before quitting his job as a reporter to write full-time.
In 1996, Connelly wrote The Poet, his first book not to feature Bosch; the protagonist was reporter Jack McEvoy. The book was a success and earned Connelly comparisons to author Thomas Harris by reviewers. In 1997, Connelly returned to Bosch in Trunk Musicbefore writing another book, Blood Work (1998) about a different character, FBI agent Terry McCaleb. The book was made into a film in 2002, directed by Clint Eastwood, who also played McCaleb. The story features McCaleb, an agent with a transplanted heart, in pursuit of his donor’s murderer. The book came together after one of Connelly’s friends had a heart transplant and he saw what his friend was going through with survivor’s guilt after the surgery.When asked if he had anything against the changes made to fit the big screen, Connelly simply said; “If you take their money, it’s their turn to tell the story”.Connelly wrote another book featuring Bosch, Angels Flight (1999), before writing Void Moon (2000), a free-standing book about Cassie Black, a Las Vegas thief. In 2001, A Darkness More Than Night was released, in which Connelly united Bosch and McCaleb to solve a crime together, before releasing two books in 2002. The first, City of Bones, was the eighth Harry Bosch novel, and the other was Chasing the Dime, a non-series novel.
In 2001, Connelly left California for Tampa Bay, Florida together with his wife and daughter, so that both he and his wife could be closer to their families. But even though Connelly moved from one coast to the other, his novels still took place in Los Angeles; he feels no desire to write books set in Florida.[4]In 2003, another Bosch novel, Lost Light, was published. With this book, a CD was released, Dark Sacred Night, the Music of Harry Bosch, featuring some of the jazz music Bosch listens to.Connelly himself says he prefers listening to rock and roll, jazz and blues. While writing he listens exclusively to instrumental jazz, though, because it does not have intrusive vocals and because the improvisational playing inspires his writing. The Narrows was published in 2004. This book was a sequel to The Poet, but featured Bosch instead of McEvoy. Together with this book, a DVD was released called Blue Neon Light: Michael Connelly’s Los Angeles. In the film, Connelly presents some of the places in Los Angeles that are frequently featured in his books.[1]The Closers was published in May 2005 and was the eleventh Bosch novel. It was followed by The Lincoln Lawyer in October, Connelly’s first legal novel. It featured defense attorney Mickey Haller, Bosch’s half-brother. The book was made into a film in 2011, directed by Brad Furman; Matthew McConaughey played Mickey Haller.
After releasing Crime Beat in 2006, a non-fiction book about Connelly’s experiences as a crime-reporter, He wrote Echo Park, which begins in the High Tower Apartment that Connelly rented and wrote from. His next Bosch story, The Overlook, was originally published as a multipart series in the New York Times Magazine. After some editing, it was published as a novel in 2007. In October 2008, Connelly wrote The Brass Verdict, which brought together Bosch and Mickey Haller for the first time. He followed that in May 2009 with The Scarecrow, which brought back McEvoy as the lead character. 9 Dragons, a novel taking Bosch to Hong Kong, was released in October 2009. The Reversal, released in October 2010, reunites Bosch & Haller as they work together under the banner of the state on the retrial of a child murderer. The Mickey Haller novel The Fifth Witness was released in 2011.The Drop, which refers, in part, to the “Deferred Retirement Option Plan” that was described in the 2008 novel The Brass Verdict. was published on November 28, 2011. One of his most recent Bosch novel, published on November 26, 2012, is titled The Black Box.
Connelly was one of the creators and executive producers of Level 9, a science fiction action TV series that aired for 13 episodes in the 2000-2001 season on the UPN television network. His novel Blood Work was adapted into a film in 2002 with a screenplay by Brian Helgeland and direction by Clint Eastwood, who also played the lead role.Connelly was the subject of the 2004 video documentary Blue Neon Night: Michael Connelly’s Los Angeles. He occasionally makes guest appearances as himself in the ABC comedy/drama TV series Castle. Along with Stephen J. Cannell, James Patterson, andDennis Lehane, he is one of Castle’s poker buddies.Connelly’s novel The Lincoln Lawyer was made into a film in 2011, with Matthew McConaughey playing defense lawyer Michael “Mickey” Haller. Following the commercial success of the film, the ABC network had commissioned a pilot for a TV series featuring Haller from the production studios Lions Gate & Lakeshore. His books, have also been translated into 36 languages, and have garnered him many awards icluding the Edgar Award, Anthony Award, Macavity Award, Los Angeles Times Best Mystery/Thriller Award, Shamus Award, Dilys Award, Nero Award, Barry Award,Audie Award, Ridley Award, Maltese Falcon Award (Japan), .38 Caliber Award (France), Grand Prix Award (France) and Premio Bancarella Award (Italy) and he was also the President of theMystery Writers of America from 2003 to 2009
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